This Household Item, Smaller Than A Dime, Poses A Lethal Danger To Children

Lithium batteries can be found in nearly everything
in your home. Otherwise known as “button batteries,” these guys are
used to power remote controls, toys, musical greeting cards,
calculators, watches, and tons of other electronics.

But because of their small size, they present an especially large danger to children — and it has nothing to do with choking hazard. In fact, if a child swallows one of these tiny batteries, it may not prove fatal until hours later.

The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
explains that when swallowed, lithium batteries can get stuck in the
esophagus, where saliva triggers an electric current that causes a
chemical reaction, potentially burning through the esophagus in as
little as two hours.

A video Dayton Children’s Hospital posted to YouTube demonstrating what these batteries can do to tissue just two hours post-ingestion shows exactly how deadly ingesting one of these batteries can be.

Last year, 2-year-old Sophie Skill ingested a button battery and had to spend six days on life support as a result. And she’s not alone.

“Our
little boy accidentally swallowed a button battery that came from the
remote control to our DVD player. … The battery physically burned
through the esophagus and into the trachea,” said Karla Rauch, mother of 5-year-old Emmett Rauch, who had to undergo 65 grueling surgeries after his incident before he was able to eat and talk again.

But neither of those stories ended as tragically as that of Brianna
Florer, a 2-year-old girl who died from esophageal injuries sustained
from swallowing a button battery.

Daily Mail
reported that after only a few days of feeling ill and registering a
low grade fever, Brianna started throwing up blood and turned blue. Her
parents rushed her to a hospital in Tulsa, Oklahoma where she
immediately went into surgery, but she later died.

An x-ray revealed she had swallowed a small button battery.

“They operated on her for 2 hours, but they couldn’t stop the bleeding,’ Brianna’s grandfather Kent Vice said.

One minute she is perfect, and the next minute she is dead,” Vice
said. All because of a common household item, smaller than the size of a
dime.

Safekids.org
reports that each year in the United States, more than 2,800 kids are
treated in emergency rooms after swallowing button batteries — one
child every three hours. The number of serious injuries or deaths as a
result of button batteries has increased ninefold in the last decade.

The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
estimates that out of reported incidents, 80 children have suffered
permanent damage, and 15 children have died in the past 6 years alone.

If you think your child had swallowed one of these batteries, the most important thing you can do is seek medical attention immediately.